Everyone loves a Rounded Corner, except IE

Why?

There are lots of talented front end designers around and the number is growing. More and more people are catching on to the use of Web Standards. As Front End Designers we need to convince those who make Marketing decisions to build the front end in the right way. It will make for a more accessible, robust, adaptable template which is both future proof and lowers loads on the servers they are stored on.

If you care to delve into the analytics of a site where there is a small difference when compared to other browsers, you will no doubt see that the percentage of IE6 users will be next to nothing. I think the answer to the question 'Do Web sites really NEED to look the same in all Web browsers?' is best summed up on this Web site

If you still use IE6, do you deserve them?

No users should be excluded from the Web, even if they have no idea what they are doing. Still, I am almost certain that any user who wants a good experience on the internet is going to upgrade to a more recent version that supports Web standards.

With this fact in mind, it is safe to assume that any user using IE6 out of choice will not care about the visual experience they have on a website, as long as they can use it to get to the information they require.

This theory can be applied to any individual, organisation or company, pretty much across the board. Why punish the many to please the few.

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This is a basic example

Those more astute of you may have noticed that this example shows the small differences (round corners aren't round) in the enhanced version the same in all versions of Internet Explorer. You are quite right. That is because this example is a tool to get the main points about progressive enhancment across in as simple a format as possible.

Rounded corners are an extremely common requirement of Modern design as they take the 'aggression' out of the overall feel of a layout. On the enhanced version, these corners are created using a css rule that only newer Firefox and Safari Browsers can support. Do the benefits of more streamlined, accessible markup outway the slight difference in design across browsers? This is one of the main questions at the core of Progressive enhancement.